Consuming the Wrong Oil Makes You Fat and Lazy, Research Shows

The secret to good health is a proper diet and exer­cise. And the role of olive oil in the for­mer is well known. But new research sug­gests that eat­ing olive oil rather than other com­mon oils may make also peo­ple more likely to exer­cise.

Sanjoy Ghosh, a pro­fes­sor at the University of British Columbia, has found that con­sum­ing large amounts of polyun­sat­u­rated fatty acids (found in corn, sun­flower, and sim­i­lar oils) rather than monoun­sat­u­rated fatty acids like those found in olive oil, makes peo­ple fat and lazy.

The effects are par­tic­u­larly pro­nounced in girls and young women.

Ghosh, work­ing with a team of researchers and data ana­lysts, showed that a diet high in polyun­sat­u­rated fatty acids (PUFAs) cor­re­lated with TV watch­ing and other seden­tary behav­iors.

PUFAs are com­monly found in con­ve­nience foods like chips and cook­ies. No such cor­re­la­tion was found with the monoun­sat­u­rated fatty acids (MUFAs) in olive and avo­cado oils.

Interestingly, con­sum­ing the sat­u­rated fats in meat and dairy prod­ucts also did not lead to seden­tary behav­ior, the researchers said.

The new research throws much of exist­ing food sci­ence into ques­tion. PUFAs, for exam­ple, are also com­monly found in salmon, which is widely believed to be healthy. And sat­u­rated fats have long been crit­i­cized by health advo­cates.

Put down the cookie, and shut off the TV

The researchers stud­ied females in 21 European coun­tries. The first stage of the study focused on pre-teen girls. The sec­ond stage exam­ined adult women. Blood glu­cose lev­els, hours of tele­vi­sion watch­ing, and other indi­ca­tors were recorded.

The results, Ghosh told reporters, show a clear con­nec­tion to the con­sump­tion of polyun­sat­u­rated fatty acids and an increase in seden­tary behav­ior. A sig­nif­i­cant cor­re­la­tion was shown between the seden­tary behav­ior of the 11-year-old girls and PUFAs. In addi­tion, the con­sump­tion of PUFAs was weakly asso­ci­ated with dia­betes among adult women.

“Nobody has made this con­nec­tion and it’s time for an inter­ven­tion,” Ghosh said in a press release. ​“And if some­one is begin­ning an exer­cise pro­gram with­out tak­ing a close look at the fats, espe­cially PUFAs they are con­sum­ing or chang­ing what they’re eat­ing, then it might be doomed to fail­ure.”

The research was funded was by the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, the Egg Farmers of Canada, Dairy Farmers of Canada and Canadian Diabetes Association.

The study, pub­lished in the PLOS One research jour­nal, fol­lows a 2015 study by Ghosh and other sci­en­tists that con­sum­ing omega‑6 polyun­sat­u­rated fats, or n‑6 PUFA, is asso­ci­ated with seden­tary behav­ior in mice.

“I am not a dietit­ian nor a med­ical doc­tor, but all recent evi­dence points out switch­ing to monoun­sat­u­rated fats, and that even a sat­u­rated fat like but­ter might be health­ier,” said Ghosh.

• PLOS One


• http://www.rd.com/health/healthy-eating/cooking-oils-and-diabetes/